Equifax Online Privacy and Cookie Policy

Who we are

We are Equifax Limited.,("Equifax" / "we" / "us" / "our") a company registered in England and Wales under registered number 2425920 and our registered office is at Capital House, 25 Chapel Street, London NW1 5DS. Equifax Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. For more than 100 years, Equifax (and its affiliated companies) ("Equifax Group") has been a catalyst for commerce by bringing businesses and consumers together. We have built our reputation through a commitment to protecting the privacy and confidentiality of sensitive information. This statement sets out our Privacy and Cookie and explains what personal information we collect from users of our website and what we do with that information. If you have any queries about this policy or our information practices, please contact us using the details given at the end of the policy. Please note that this policy only applies to this website and not to any other websites including any that are linked to it.

Consent

By using this website you agree that we can place the cookies described below on your device. Please refer to the ‘How to manage cookies’ section of this policy for more information.

By using this website you also signify that you have consented to our collecting and using the personal information that you provide to us in accordance with this Privacy & Cookie Policy. You will also be deemed to have read and accepted this Privacy & Cookie Policy.

Cookies

What is a cookie?

Cookies are text files containing small amounts of information which are downloaded to your device when you visit a website. A device can refer to a computer, smartphone or tablet. Cookies are then sent back to the originating website on each subsequent visit, or to another website that recognises that cookie. Cookies are useful because they allow a website to recognise a user’s device. You can find more information about cookies at: www.allaboutcookies.org and www.youronlinechoices.eu . For a video about cookies visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBR-xtJVq7E Cookies do lots of different jobs, like letting you navigate between pages efficiently, remembering your preferences, and generally improve the user experience. They can also help to ensure that adverts you see online are more relevant to you and your interests.

How we use cookies

The cookies used on this website have been categorised based on the categories found in the ICC UK Cookie guide. A list of all the cookies used on this website, by category, is set out below.

These cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around the website and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of the website. Without these cookies services you have asked for, like shopping baskets, cannot be provided.

These cookies collect information about how visitors use the website, for instance which pages visitors go to most often, and if they get error messages from web pages. These cookies don’t collect information that identifies a visitor. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. It is only used to improve how a website works.

An example of a performance cookie we use is:

Cookie

What the cookie is used for

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics to give us insight into how our users interact with the website. The information collected is anonymous and statistical in nature, including the number of visitors to the website, where they have come to the site from and the pages they have visited. More information can be found at: http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/analytics/privacyoverview.html

These cookies allow the website to remember choices you make (such as your user name or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personal features. These cookies can also be used to remember changes you have made to text size, fonts and other parts of web pages that you can customise. They may also be used to provide services you have asked for such as watching a video. The information these cookies collect is anonymised and cannot track your browsing activity on other websites.

Examples of the functional cookies we use include:

Cookie

What the cookie is used for

Cookie Compliance

These cookies are used to track the acceptance of the equifax cookie policy and place a cookie on the customers browser recording acknowledgement.

Style

A content management session cookie used to remember selections and preferences which expires when the user exists their browser session. The cookie stores no personal data or identifiers.

Category 4: Targeting cookies or advertising cookies – These cookies collect information about your browsing habits in order to make advertising relevant to you and your interests.

These are usually third party cookies (see section below) used to deliver adverts more relevant to you and your interests. They are also used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement as well as help measure the effectiveness of the advertising campaign. They are usually placed by advertising networks with the website operator’s permission. They remember that you have visited the website and this information is shared with other organisations such as advertisers. Quite often targeting or advertising cookies will be linked to site functionality provided by the other organisation.

How to manage cookies

Most web browsers automatically accept cookies. However you do not have to accept cookies and you can, should you choose at any time, reject or block the use of cookies and delete all cookies currently stored on your device.

You can find out how to do this for your particular browser by clicking ‘help’ on your browser’s menu, or by visiting: www.allaboutcookies.org . For example, in Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 you can delete cookies by selecting ‘Tools/Internet Options’, clicking on ‘Delete’ in the Browsing History section and then selecting ‘delete cookies’ Options to accept, block or require notification for the use of cookies are found under: ‘Tools/Internet Options/Privacy/Advanced’

Please be aware however that if you chose to block cookies you may not be able to access certain features of the website.

Third party cookies

We may allow third party organisations to set cookies using this website in order to deliver services. If you would like more information about the cookies used by these third parties, please see their individual privacy policies listed below:

Cookie

What the cookie is used for

Adobe (formally Omniture)/ Hitbox

We use the Adobe SiteCatalyst analytics product to give us insights into how our users interact with the website. The information collected is anonymous and statistical in nature. To find out more , go to http://www.adobe.com/privacy/marketing-cloud.html

We use BrightTag to manage our other tags, such as Google Analytics and Adobe SiteCatalyst. BrightTag does not capture any additional information in itself but helps us to make changes to our website and keeps the page loading times down. For more information, go to http://www.brighttag.com/products/tag-management/

Ensighten

We use Ensighten Services to give us insights into how our users interact with the website. The information collected is anonymous and statistical in nature. To find out more , go to https://www.ensighten.com/privacy-policy/

w55c.net, crwdcntrl.net

We may allow these cookies to be set by, Lotame Solutions Inc. They also collect browsing non-personal data to support customised advertising campaigns and related activities. To find out more about these cookies and how to manage them, go to http://www.lotame.com/legal

These cookies are used for the collection of anonymous information to support the placement of relevant online advertising when you surf the internet. For more information on these cookies and how to manage then, go to http://oo.netmng.com/optout/cp/en.html

These cookies are set by Quantserve who do audience research and behavioural advertising. More information about these cookies and how to manage them can be found at http://www.quantserve.com

Equifax.co.uk

These cookies are used to track the acceptance of the Equifax cookie policy and place a cookie on the customers browser recording acknowledgement.

The information that we collect about you

This Policy applies to all information we receive from you, whether you are registering on our website or ordering any of our products. During the course of your use of this website, we will collect two types of information:

(i) Aggregated Information – This website automatically gathers certain statistical information such as the number and frequency of visitors. This information is only used in the aggregate and individuals cannot be identified from it. This aggregated information helps us to measure how individuals use the website and our services so that we can continually improve them.

(ii) Personal Information – We require personal information from you, such as name, address, date of birth and e-mail address, in order for us to perform the services offered by this website and to fulfil your requests. Some of this information is voluntary and the compulsory fields are clearly marked on the form.

If you subscribe to our WebDetect™ service please also see the ‘WebDetect™’ section below.

What we do with your personal information

Your personal information may be used in a number of ways:

Identifying potential customers or subscribers.

As part of the account opening process for new customers, including verifying your identity.

Providing you with the services that you have requested, including dealing with your requests and queries and maintaining our records and for other administrative purposes.

For the purposes of operating our systems properly and to protect ourselves and/or our users.

We may disclose personal information to other members of the Equifax Group and other reputable companies and suppliers whom we engage to help us create, develop, operate, deliver, and improve our products, services, content and advertising.

We may disclose personal information to other members of the Equifax Group and other reputable companies and suppliers whom we engage to process data on our behalf and who may be based outside the EEA.

For WebDetect™ subscribers we will disclose the personal information you have asked us to monitor to our dedicated service provider(s) solely for the purpose of providing the service, who may be based outside the EEA.

We may also share statistical information gathered by us about you to other members of the Equifax Group and to other reputable organisations, but the information we provide will not include details that would allow these organisations to identify you.

We may disclose personal information about you to government agencies, fraud prevention agencies and other lawful and/or competent authorities to comply with applicable laws, court orders or lawful government requests.

In order to fulfil your request for a copy of your credit report, Equifax will complete a search of our consumer database. A record of this search will be visible on your credit report for 12 months. The search will not visible to other companies who may access your personal information with Equifax during this period.

WebDetect™

If you subscribe to our WebDetect™ service, in addition to the personal information we generally collect from you and use, as detailed above, we also may, subject to your agreement, collect and process the following personal information in order to provide our WebDetect monitoring service. We recognise that this information includes more sensitive data and therefore we apply appropriate security measures, including:

For credit card numbers - we only store and process in an encrypted state and never in its full 16 digit numerical format.

For bank accounts and sort codes – the full sort code and account number is always encrypted.

The information you provide and ask us to monitor to help identify unauthorised distribution and use across the web will be retained for the period of your membership and whilst you continue to ask us to monitor the information. Should you cancel our WebDetect™ service, this information will be deleted within 90 days of your subscription ending.

Marketing

Unless you indicate otherwise when you register for one of our products or services, or later by changing your Profile options in your Member Centre, we may from time to time send you promotional information about our products and services by email, telephone, post or mobile messaging.

If you indicate your consent, we may send you information by email, telephone, post or mobile messaging from our great network of trusted partners whose products and services we think you will find useful. We will give you details about the types of products and services offered by these trusted partners at the time we ask for your consent. We won’t release your information to them but we will send you occasional messages from them that we think you’ll like. You can always stop these messages whenever you want to – see below.

If you do not wish to receive such information, all our communications give you the opportunity to unsubscribe. In addition, you may log on to our website, go to the My Account page in your Member Centre and click on the Update Profile option. In the Profile page deselect the appropriate options. You may also contact us by post by writing to the Equifax Ltd, Customer Service Centre, PO Box 10036, Leicester, LE3 4FS

You also have the right to receive a copy of all the personal information that we hold about you under S7 of the Data Protection Act 1998 by submitting a Subject Access Request. The statutory fee is currently £10.

Information security

We recognise the importance of keeping your personal information secure. We take reasonable steps to ensure that our online transactions are secure and that we protect the privacy of information provided to us. We have strict security and confidentiality procedures covering the storage and disclosure of information in order to maintain confidentiality; prevent unauthorised access; and to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998. Our senior leaders have endorsed and signed the Information Commissioner's 'Personal Information Promise' to demonstrate our commitment to data protection. You can read about the Personal Information Promise on the Information Commissioner Office website www.ico.gov.uk.

Changes to this policy

We may change this Privacy & Cookie Policy at any time by publishing revised or new terms on this website. By continuing to use this website after we change our Privacy & Cookie Policy you accept and will be bound by its terms. We will notify you of the date the changes were last made by including the date of these changes in the 'Latest Version' section below, so it is important that you check this page from time to time to take notice of any changes that we make.

More information & contact details

If you have any queries about our on-line Privacy & Cookie Policy or our information practices in general, you may contact us by post by writing to the Equifax Ltd, Customer Service Centre, PO Box 10036, Leicester, LE3 4FS or by any of the other methods described in the About Equifax/ Contact Us section of this website.